The subject invention relates to a desk with a slide-door and guideway therefor. More particularly, this invention relates to a toy roll-top desk for a child.
Full sized roll-top desks have long been used by adults. Such desks are popular, in part, because they permit the desk surface to be quickly and conveniently covered to provide an outwardly neat appearance. In addition, the upper sides surrounding the desk surface provide some degree of privacy for the user and afford a convenient location for pigeonholes for organizing desk materials.
These features of the roll-top desk are likewise of value if incorporated in a child's desk. Specifically, since children are known to keep desk surfaces in an untidy condition, it is advantageous to provide a child's desk with a slide-door for selectively covering the desk surface. Moreover, the privacy afforded by the side walls of a roll-top desk may improve the child's work habits and concentration. Finally, the provision of easily accessible pigeonholes above the work surface of the desk may encourage the child to organize his papers, writing implements and other desk materials.
Conventional, full-sized roll-top desks are illustrated, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 242,436; and U.S. Design Pat. Nos. 18227; 18176; and 87697. Such desks are of massive construction having carefully shaped and fitted wooden components. The desks include a plurality of drawers, ornamental moldings, and slatted roll-top doors, slidably moveable along wooden tracks provided on the upper desk sides. These features contribute substantially to the typically great cost of such desks. For this reason, mere reduction in the size of such desks would not make them sufficiently inexpensive as to be suitable for use as toy desks for children. Moreover, the scaling-down of the slotted door and wooden tracks may make construction difficult and weaken necessary components to such an extent that they would be easily damaged or broken by the rough handling typically given a desk by young children.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a novel, inexpensive and easily fabricated roll-top desk for a child.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a novel, inexpensive roll-top desk having a durable slide-door and guideway.
A major cost of the provision of furniture items is the cost of transporting the furniture to the customer. Packing and transporting of furniture is facilitated if the furniture can be easily, partially disassembled. Where the item of furniture includes a slide-door, as, for example, in a roll-top desk, the versatility of the design is increased if the working surface, casing, and slide-door assembly is constructed independently of a pedestal therefor.
Accordingly, it is another object of the present invention to provide a novel working surface, casing and slide-door assembly adapted for easy attachment to a pedestal to provide a roll-top desk.
Such slide-doors and guideways as have been used in conventional desks, cabinets etc., employ rigid, slotted guideways. For example, a desk disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,294,465 to Blodee et al, includes a rigid, slotted guideway for a slide-door, the slot being coated with plastic. U.S. Pat. No. 2,070,924 to Derman shows straight, rigid frame strips with straight slots for engaging the slide-door of a cabinet and walls of the cabinet. The slide-door is constructed of thin, independent strips of cardboard or wood attached to one another by a sheet of canvas or other fabric.
Prior art assemblies of this type with rigid guideways have several disadvantages. First, curved rigid guideways, of a type required in a roll-top desk, are difficult to form. Second, where the slide-door is of relatively light construction, the door may be easily damaged by rough handling when its edges are constrained to follow a rigid, arcuate guideway.
Accordingly, it is a further object of the present invention to provide a novel, inexpensive desk with a slide-door of relatively light construction for easy handling which is slidable along an arcuate guideway.
These and other objects and features of the present invention will become apparent from the following description when read in conjunction with the appended drawings.